After successfully completing and summarizing the Summer Seminars, the National Association of Art Critics (NAAC) now intends to further develop the program focusing on partnership and networking with regional actors in the field of art criticism and curating.

SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts – Ljubljana (Slovenia) was present at the summer’s programme with two lectures: Tevž Logar, the World of Art assistant, presented the school of contemporary arts World of Art, that has been operating in frame of SCCA-Ljubljana from 1997. Conceived in yearly cycles and composed by the course for curators with a final exhibition, seminar in writing, series of lectures and a yearly anthology, it has established the mechanisms necessary for reflective operation in the world of art. Barbara Borčić, SCCA-Ljubljana director and head of video programs, presented different aspects of curating in Slovenia comprised of juxtaposition of different understandings, visions, achievements and interpretations of curatorial practices in a wider context of contemporary art from the sixties to the present.

SCCA-Ljubljana also launched open call for tenders for residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. The SCCA-Ljubljana selection board (Barbara Borčić, Saša Nabergoj and Nevenka Šivavec) made a preselection. The final selection was made by the National Association of Art Critics.

From Slovenia Petra Kapš, art critic, curator and publicist, took part in the Summer Seminars.

2nd Summer Seminars for Art Curators

Program

The 2007 summer seminars and the workshop for art curators centered on the relation of the art critic and curator on the one hand and curator-artist on the other, in the face of globalization/westernization of the art market and big exhibitions; i. e. biennales, art fairs and festivals as one of the outcomes of these processes that have penetrated into former socialist countries since the mid-1990’s.

The program focused on curating as a critical practice, and particularly, the curator as someone who combines the management of relations (artist-curator, artist-critics, artist-society) with the function of evaluation.

The intensive two-week program comprised of a theory and method courses, as well as a curatorial workshop. The courses were combined with presentations by local and international artists, curators, art historians and cultural workers as well as with visits to artist’s studios, galleries and museum in Yerevan.

Mentors

Miško Šuvaković: Critical Writing Workshop

At the “Critical writing” workshop the theoretical platforms of critical practice and theoretical and curatorial practices in contemporary art was discussed. The goal of the course was to introduce the students to analytical relationship to the discursive problems and questions of power in contemporary art and culture.
Miško Šuvaković
Professor of aesthetics and theory of art. He teaches at the Faculty of Music and Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Arts in Belgrade. He is an author and co-editor of twenty two books on contemporary art and theory.

Neery Melkonian: Global Feminism’s Other

During the course the contexts, subtexts and curatorial approaches that inform big feminist international exhibits were discussed. The ideological frameworks and the possible causes for the absence of certain cultural geographies in such undertakings were addressed. The course focused on exploring the works of Armenian women artists internationally covering the post WWII period to the present.
Neery Melkonian
Independent critic, curator and an advisor based in New York City. As Associate Director of the Center for Curatorial Studies Museum at Bard College, and the Director of Visual Arts programming at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, Melkonian has organized over twenty solo exhibitions and two traveling group-exhibits. She has lectured/conducted workshops on topics related to aesthetics of displacement, globalization and trans-cultural geographies.

Elvan Zabunian: A History of Exposition

The five meetings were articulated around outstanding exhibitions organized in Europe since 1969, the year when the exhibition When Attitudes Become Form (Harald Szeeman) was organized. The exhibitions discussed included Paris-Berlin (1978) and Paris-Moscow (1979), Magicians of the Earth (1989), Dokumenta XI.
Elvan Zabunian
Contemporary art historian and art critic based in Paris. She is Associate Professor at the Rennes University (Brittany, France) where for several years she has been the director of the Curatorial Program in the Art History Department.

Presentationas and lectures

From Armenia:

• Ruben Arevshatyan,(artist and free-lance curator): Contemporary Art and Educational System in Armenia; Fine Arts Department of the Armenian Open University
• Nazareth Karoyan (AICA-Armenia): Education as a field of critical praxisv
• Eva Khachatryan (ACCEA, Erevan): vArt Criticism And Curatorial Practice In Post-Soviet Armenia
• Azat Sargysayn (GSSA, Erevan): Gyumri International Biennial of Contemporary Art
• Vardan Azatyan (AICA-Armenia): Memory and/or Oblivion: Historicizing the Contemporary Art of Armenia
• Angela Harutyunyan (AICA-Armenia): Importing the Curator: Politics of Representation and Recognition in Contemporary Armenian Art

International guests:

• Malcolm F. Miles (University of Plymouth, England): Society as a Work of Art?
• Claudia-Maria Luenig(Basement, Wien, Austria): The Role of Independent Exhibition Spaces In the Arts On the Example of the Basement in Vienna
• Valeria Ibraeva (SCCA-Almaty, Kazakhstan): Kazakhstan art as a political project
• Tevž Logar (SCCA-Ljubljana, Slovenia): School of contemporary arts World of Art (arhiv.worldofart.org)
• Barbara Borčić (SCCA-Ljubljana, Slovenia): On different aspects of curating in Slovenia

Participants

• Arpi Adamyan (Armenija)
• Mary Amirkhanyan (Armenija)
• Rael Artel (Estonija)
• Anna Bitkina (Russia)
• Armine Babayan (Armenija)
• Irina Chkhaidze (Gruzija)
• Estzer Lazar (Madžarska)
• Karina Galimzyanova (Kirgizija)
• Marianna Hovhanissyan (Armenija)
• Petra Kapš (Slovenija)
• Dastan Kozhakhmetov (Kazahstan)
• Sorana Muntenau (Romunija)
• Azat Sarkissian (Armenija)
• Seda Shekoyan (Armenija)
• Joanna Sokolowska (Poljska)
• Marko Stamenković (Srbija)
• Ani Soukiassian (Armenija)
• Nadia Tsulukidze (Gruzija)
• Arpine Tokmadjayan (Armenija)
• Tsolak Topchyan (Armenija)
• Vladimir Us (Moldavija)